Last Man Standing
by trufflemores
Summary: 5.23. Oliver refuses to let his family die. It's time to go into the jungle. (Takes place immediately after finale.)


In a thick, tear-choked voice, William asks, "Dad? What do we do?"

Oliver holds William to his chest and says, "Close your eyes, let me – I have to take care of this." He can't take his eyes from Chase. He can't unhear the gunshot. Looking down at William, he sees that William's eyes are shut tightly. "Keep 'em closed, buddy," he advises. "Hold the railing." Placing William's hand on the railing, he lets go and steps forward.

He lifts Chase under the arms. His deadweight is huge, like the monster he contained in public waited for this opportunity to emerge. Oliver hesitates, debating the merits of attempting to bring his body home – to what end? – before dumping him overboard.

His body hits the water with a sickening splash and Oliver's stomach turns over. He swallows back bile and looks over at William. Trembling at the side of the boat, Willy looks ready to pass out. "Okay, bud, you can open your eyes now," Oliver says.

There are tears in them, bunching in his eyelashes. "Where's Mom?" he pleads. "He took her, he—"

"Your mom is fine. She's with my friends."

It hurts to say because it's true. _Wherever they are, she is, too_.

If they survived, then she survived. If not …

"She's still on the island," William realizes, looking back over his shoulder and nearly losing his footing as the boat skips over a chop in the waves. Oliver grabs the back of his shirt, anchoring him to the boat. _I am not losing you_. He refuses to add _too_.

"We're going back for them," Oliver assures. "Sit down. Take a deep breath. If you start to feel dizzy, put your head between your knees."

He waits until William complies. William keeps his gaze on the island, still bleeding black smoke. It's a better sight than the slaughterhouse scene on the deck, red and gray matter spilled carelessly just feet away. Even though the island is equally morbid, it's more sterile.

It's also a reminder that if the explosions didn't kill everyone, then smoke inhalation will, Oliver knows. They need to cover ground quickly. He'd jump overboard and swim there, but William couldn't keep up and he cannot, under any circumstances, abandon his son.

Decided, he hijacks the boat and gets them onshore inside three minutes. Haunted, William looks from the island to him. "What do we do?" he asks.

Oliver hops out and William follows suit. " _We_ are going to find everyone and bring them back to our boat. But to do that, I need your shirt." William shrugs out of it without question and Oliver starts tearing off large strips. He'd use his own, but underneath his Arrow jacket it's drenched in sweat and tougher to tear. Dampening one of the strips in saltwater, he partially wrings it out before wrapping it around William's nose like an old cowboy bandanna, tying it in the back. "You good? Can you breathe?"

Nodding, William watches him with wide eyes as Oliver ties his own bandanna. "This will help with the smoke," he explains. "Smoke is acrid. That means it will sting when you breathe or blink."

"I can take it," William promises, fifth-grade-bravado. He is too young to have to suffer for Oliver's sins, too young to be involved in any of this nightmare, but they have no choice. He's here. Oliver nods and hands him back the rest of his shirt. William shrugs it on without comment, even though it only covers half of his chest.

"Climb on my back," Oliver instructs, crouching so William can do so. He didn't plan to jog five miles through the forest with a ten-year-old on his back, but here they are. "Hold on tight. Put your head between my shoulders once I start moving. Your eyes will sting – keep them shut. If you feel sick, tell me."

Shakily, William hops on, putting Oliver in a headlock as soon as he's hoisted up. Oliver doesn't correct him, bracing his feet when he feels William duck his head and press it hard against his back. "Here we go, buddy. Just keep your head down and your eyes shut. Everything's going to be okay."

Before he can lose his own nerve at the inferno he is about to enter, Oliver takes in one last deep breath and plunges into Hell.

. o .

In near perfect darkness and crackling quiet, Oliver runs two miles without interruption, desperately following the straightest possible path to the plane. When he stumbles, William whimpers, like he's afraid Oliver will abandon him once he becomes too burdensome to carry. Reaching up to squeeze his arm gently – _not a chance_ – Oliver carries on, trying not to let his bursting lungs slow him down.

The worst part – harder than the building ache in his legs or the stinging pain in his chest – is the burn in his eyes. They feel abraded, they're so scorched, exposed to the noxious blanket of smoke, but he doesn't dare run blind. A single fall could break his neck. He finds respite in snatched seconds, closing his eyes for long blinks as he sails across terrain he has known for almost ten years, trusting his feet whenever his eyes fail.

 _Please, please be alive_ , he entreats, praying John made it with his mind intact because John knows exactly what to do in this kind of situation. John would have fashioned his team bandannas to protect their eyes and lungs to the best of his ability. It wouldn't be enough, but it would give them time. The knowledge that they've been stuck in this inferno since the bombs went off gives Oliver the strength to go on even when his own body aches for the clear shore.

His first attempt to shout, "JOHN!" ends in a coughing fit so violent he nearly sets William down. Clutching his neck for dear life, William holds on and Oliver overcomes the fit with his charge on his back, repeating more successfully, "JOHN!"

He still hacks up a lung as he stumbles onward, shouting, "FELICITY!" and "THEA!" and even "CURTIS!" for good measure. "RENE!" he roars. "NYSSA! QUENTIN! DINAH! SLADE!" Furious and scared, he repeats their names, over and over, even though his voice barely carries. At best it reaches them, but they might not be able to respond. At worst, there is no one to hear the call at all.

"Dad," William coughs, "Dad, where's Mom?"

"SAMANTHA!" Oliver barks, and William's grip tightens, but then he hears a whimper and hope surges in his chest, _oh-thank-God-thank-God_ as he scrambles in the direction of the movement.

He trips over his charge and William and he go down hard. Groaning, he pries brambles out of his chest and rights himself, asking in a smoke-scorched voice, "Will, you okay?" William nods fiercely and doesn't open his eyes. Oliver takes his hand and scrambles as quickly as he dares over to the groaning figure, making sure not to trip up William in his haste.

"You're okay," he tells – Dinah, it's Dinah, oh thank God that's one. "Hey, can you hear me?" He can barely hear himself, so he pries off his face mask and instantly regrets it. The smoke is ten times more – maybe a hundred times more – potent without it. Without hesitation, he ties it around her mouth and nose, bandanna style. "Dinah, it's Oliver," he says, coughing hard. "I'm here to get you to safety."

To William, he asks, "Keep your eyes closed and follow me."

Unable to speak, William nods. Oliver keeps his hand and reaches down for Dinah, barely conscious, dragging her arm over his shoulders and supporting her. Half-aware, she stumbles drunkenly alongside them, slowing him down tremendously, and all he can feel is the fire of every second of air burning out of his lungs.

Then he finds another body – Quentin – and groans. "Quentin," he manages. Letting go of William—who promptly grabs onto the back of his jacket, _good kid_ – Oliver crouches, Dinah's hand on his back for support, and shakes the man, his shirt pulled over his face. He's conscious, but his eyes are dazed, not focusing. Hauling, Oliver growls, " _Quentin_."

Sitting up with sluggish movements, Quentin gets to his feet under his own power. "Good man. Follow me," Oliver rasps, taking William's hand as Dinah's arm goes around his shoulders.

It takes a lifetime to reach the shore. Quentin wanders ahead of them, taking a listless seat, intact but not entirely with it. Oliver has the sense of mind to set Dinah down as far from the forest as he dares, let go of William's hand, and stagger three steps away before vomiting black bile onto the rocks. Groaning from deep in his chest, he weathers the fit until it passes, using a mouthful of saltwater to rinse out his mouth, spitting it back out. "Dinah," he coughs, staggering over and crouching in front of her. "Dinah, are you hurt?"

"Get … the others," she tells him instead, eyes half-open, ashen-faced but already improving in the clear air.

"I need you to watch William," Oliver tells her, squeezing her hand, and she squeezes it back in recognition. "And him," he adds, nodding at Quentin.

"I need you to stay here," he tells William, taking off his bandanna and reclaiming Dinah's. Then, apologetically, he says, "I need the rest of your shirt." William doesn't even hesitate, and Oliver tears off six more strips from it, dampening all of them. He doesn't bother to wring them out, shoving them into his pocket, tying one around his own mouth, and charging on. He wishes he had one of Curtis' magic balls right about now; he could really use a shot of adrenaline.

The knowledge that his friends are actively dying is plenty of motivation. Dinah's words – _get the others_ – are a near hysterically welcome response. It means there are others _to get_. Some survived. They must have.

 _They might all be dead by now_.

He doesn't know how long it's been – all sense of time evaporates in the forest – but he nearly plows John over when he runs into him. "John!" he shouts, holding his arms. John sways, steadies, and looks down at him deliriously. He's got a shirt around his mouth, but he's clearly struggling; his shoulders slouch deep; his red eyes are barely open.

"Oliver?" he rasps. "Where are –" A deep, wracking cough cuts him off.

Oliver shakes his head and orders, "Get to the shore." When John shakes his head, he repeats, " _Get to the shore_ ," with a stern push in the right direction. "Two miles."

He hates the thought of leaving John alone, knows he could be sentencing the man to die, but he has to trust that John-the-soldier can override John-the-dying-man long enough to follow a direct order to a known location. With unexpected resolve, John starts walking – maybe, Oliver thinks dimly, he knows he stands a chance of joining the rescue if he can make it back to shore to recover – and Oliver turns his back on him.

The fact that he's on his feet, Oliver dares to take as a good sign. He sweeps the area, shouting names at random, and tracks down Curtis nearly a quarter-mile away, barely breathing and clearly unconscious. "Dammit, Curtis," he grunts, tying a bandanna around his face and slinging him in a fireman's carry over his shoulders. The weight is almost too much: he takes a step and stumbles, almost passing out. Holding his ground, he lets the darkness pass, and hears a voice shouting, "Ollie?" faintly.

 _Thea._

Heart skipping a beat, he almost forgets about the weight across his shoulders as he runs towards her, shouting her name until his throat bleeds, a desperate roar that carries, " ** _THEA!_** " until it stops meaning anything.

It takes almost ten minutes to find her, sitting on the forest floor with Nyssa at her side. Both of them have improv bandannas on. Oliver sets Curtis down and replaces both of their bandannas with two of his still-damp ones. Thea presses hers to her mouth hungrily, the dampness a balm in the scorching desert. Nyssa just looks at him, the left side of her face caked in blood, and murmurs, "Thea cannot walk."

There's a post-blast fire still cooking nearby, eating up shrubbery, and Oliver can't take proper stock of either of their injuries, but he quickly surmises that Nyssa, unable to help Thea, stayed her ground. His heart hurts with relief and anguish; he can't help either of them with Curtis, and he doesn't know how much more exposure Curtis can take before he simply suffocates in his sleep.

A loud crack as a distant tree explodes jolts him back to the immediate present. "Nyssa," he asks, "can you walk?"

Nyssa nods faintly, but he doesn't trust her wandering off, worried about the extent of her head injury. He'll have to keep her close or she's as dead as Curtis. Thea seems the most lucid; even more so than John, and a painful twinge of regret surges through him at the thought that John was hiding some mortal injury, compromising him, but too stoic to say it out loud. Still, he can't worry about that – John is gone, and Thea and Nyssa and Curtis are here now. _Focus_.

Thea has – at best – fifteen minutes before the fire reaches her location. He has nothing to put it out; it would be a waste of bandannas to try. Even he can't run a four-minute mile, not under these conditions, and it would still leave him almost a minute short, assuming his most generous estimate is correct. Moving her a few feet won't buy them much more time, and a hundred yards would take so much effort it would only accelerate the fire's timeline.

"Hoss?" a voice asks, and Oliver could cry as Rene stumbles through the nearby bushes.

"Just in time," Thea says, "join the party."

Rene looks at her, at Nyssa, at Curtis, and at last at Oliver, and pales. "We're so fucked," he says, and Oliver feels sick when he sees the metal rod sticking out of his stomach.

'See' is an overstatement; even breathing is hard. He has to get out of here. He can't hold his breath much longer; the suffocating smoke fills his lungs. "Okay," he rasps, putting on his best impression of a not-dying man in full command. He grabs a bandanna and closes the distance between Rene and himself, tying it around Rene's face for him. "Rene, Nyssa, get to shore. It's two miles from here." Pointing, he indicates the right direction. "Head towards it. I'll catch up."

Without further prompting, Rene offers Nyssa a hand up, and Oliver sees her grimace as she climbs to her feet. Like wounded soldiers, they stagger on, Rene shouting curses every ten feet or so.

"That'll help draw out any of the others," Oliver points out, crouching next to Thea and offering his back to her. "Come on."

Too tired to argue, Thea wraps her arms around his neck. She groans softly when he gets his hands under her legs; her right is clearly broken and he does his best not to jostle it. Looking at Curtis, he stares hard at the other man, willing him to spring to his feet.

Thea tells his shoulder, "We can't leave him, Ollie."

Oliver's heart pounds as another tree cracks – twelve minutes, maybe. Assuming another fire doesn't break out spontaneously, a not-inconceivable notion, given how hot the air is right now. "We're not going to," he says, letting her legs go. "Hold on. Tightly," he advises, but she's already clinging to him League-of-Assassin hard and doesn't need telling twice.

Crouching, he grabs Curtis' left leg in both hands and starts dragging him. It's a grueling process and he can feel Thea's grip weakening almost immediately, but he insists, "Hold on" and tries to tell his rebelling muscles to do the same. _Hang in there_.

He gains a quarter of a mile before halting, breathing too hard. His arms are so sore he isn't sure he can even drag Curtis, but they've gained a little time. He's relieved – and terrified – that Rene and Nyssa aren't in sight. To be fair, his eyes water so much he might not be able to see them if they were ten feet away.

He lets Curtis go, digs around with a numb hand in his ankle holster for a small marker arrow, and stabs it into a tree. It's a bright silver with a fairly high reflectivity; he tells the unconscious Curtis, "I'm coming back."

Wrapping his arms carefully around Thea's legs, he tells her, "Here we go."

He's run for his life on so many occasions that he sinks into the adrenaline-infused state of numbness without consciously recognizing the switch, deaf and blind to anything other than the next step. Trees blur into the scenery, and even the ground's realness underfoot becomes suspect, his whole world composed of the way his legs ache and his head spins and his chest _burns_ , an animal trapped in his own head.

He breaks out onto the shore and Rene and Nyssa are there with Dinah and Quentin, William sitting with Rene leaning against him while Nyssa stands in the water and breathes, breathes, breathes.

John is nowhere in sight.

Oliver staggers over to the others and places Thea down with as much care as he can muster. "I'm coming back," he promises, taking a single step and faltering, crashing unexpectedly to a knee on the rocks.

Rene calls in a raspy tone, "Easy, Hoss."

Shaking his head, shaking his rebelling body, Oliver drags himself to his feet.

 _Curtis_.

It takes a lifetime to find him, even with the arrow, and thank God he put the arrow there because he never would have found him if it wasn't for the arrow.

But Curtis isn't with the arrow.

He's almost a hundred yards away, staggering on in the wrong direction, like a hypothermic man struggling for the summit when he needs to find fire instead. "CURTIS!" he shouts, tries to, but the other man doesn't turn. "CURTIS!"

Curtis collapses and Oliver rushes towards him. He's ripped the cloth off his face – Oliver doesn't bother to find it, just fishes out another from his pocket and gets it around Curtis' face – and looks at Oliver with hooded eyes. His lips twitch in a smile. He says, "Paul?"

"Close," Oliver grunts. "Here to help." Grabbing Curtis' arm, he drags it over his shoulders, groaning out loud at the ache. Curtis leans heavily against him and the height different, while mitigated by Curtis' slouched shoulders, is still very real. Still, it's easier than a fireman's carry. His shoulders feel like they're going to snap. "Let's go."

Shore is miles and miles and miles away, endlessly far, and Oliver almost doesn't believe it when he sees it. Curtis lets go of him and collapses to the sand, coughing, coughing, coughing, and Oliver's throat hurts sympathetically but he just turns and plunges back into the jungle.

He's gone for a long time, and he loses track of the shore, loses track of any noise other than the occasional gunshot retort as a tree explodes.

He thinks he passes out – trips over a hole in the ground and comes to with his lungs acidic, liquefied, sucking in exactly zero valuable ounces of air. Wheezing, he claws his wake back to the land of the living, hauling himself to his feet. The smoke, if anything, just seems denser, and he knows a moment of fear that he has wandered too far and won't ever find his way out when he hears movement nearby.

He flinches reflexively at the crack of a branch suddenly very close and Samantha stumbles into him, clutching him like he's part of the scenery. Recognition dawns as her grip turns ferociously tight. "Ollie?" she whispers, and he brushes her hair back and hugs her tightly, shaking with relief.

"I've got you," he promises, and means it with every bone in his body.

He leads and she follows, trusting him to know the way, but he lost track of it, and two miles drags on, and on, and on.

At some point Samantha says, "Will – William?"

"He's safe," Oliver grunts. "He's okay."

 _We're not_.

He shoves the rational protest away and keeps moving. It doesn't matter if he's burning precious strength walking them in circles, to dead ends. He needs to believe the answer is the next step he will take, or he will fall over and die.

Samantha doesn't say anything and at some point the air temperature begins to drop, but Oliver doesn't realize exactly how desperate their situation is until they emerge on the shore and it's dark.

Oh, God.

It's dark.

William looks over and comes running, hugging his mother and sobbing, and Samantha holds onto him and gasps, "Oh baby, you're okay, you're okay."

Oliver looks around and feels his stomach sink. The tally hasn't changed. They've got a fire going, but that's the sole improvement. Rene, lying on his back, looks two-thirds of the way to the casket, with Quentin talking to him in a low voice while Rene nods vaguely; Curtis is hunched over his head, hurting; Nyssa is leaning heavily on Dinah's shoulder. The latter looks the most coherent, watching him with worried eyes, and she starts to stand but Oliver shakes his head and, with a hard exhale, vomits a mouthful of blood before re-soaking the bandannas in his pocket.

Into the darkness, he disappears. He can't talk, and the only illumination he has is moonlight and firelight, intermittent and unreliable. When his foot connects with a body, he just closes his eyes and halts, breathing shallowly, afraid to check. Terribly afraid, because he knows what humans can withstand and six hours of smoke exposure is not it.

Looking down, he sees Slade's mask.

"Leave me, kid."

He jerks back, as startled as if a zombie had come to life, and Slade coughs, turning onto his side and shivering. He's badly burned, but he's conscious, and it is more than Oliver could have hoped for. More than he dared to believe was possible.

So he rallies his nonexistent strength, crouches, and takes off the mask. Replacing it with a dry bandanna, he explains softly, "I'm gonna get you outta here, Slade."

Dragging the man's body over his shoulder, he gasps in pain and forces himself to take a step forward. Then another. And another. Come on. Come on. A little longer.

"You are a stubborn bastard," Slade informs him, coughing hard.

"I made a promise," Oliver reminds.

It's all they have to say to each other, all they need to say, because they're different people now, different a dozen times over, but some things haven't changed.

Oliver plods on, carrying his once great adversary across his shoulders. Willing each step to come. Willing his last reserves to last a little longer.

He can hear the water, distant, washing, but he finds himself walking around it, never approaching, and wants to cry because he's so _tired_ , let him be, let him find the answer simply just once, let him win _just once_.

Fate or God or something in between looks kindly upon him; he finds a break in the clearing and stumbles towards it. He stumbles towards the water, almost ecstatic with relief, dropping Slade onto his side carefully on the shore. Farther down – much farther down, he realizes, maybe half a mile – the rest of the team awaits with their fire. Oliver tries to call to them and can't make a sound.

Helpfully, Slade puts his fingers to his mouth and whistles, an astonishingly loud sound in the dead forest, and two people – Dinah and Quentin – come running. "We're almost there," Oliver tells Slade in a voice that is barely his. "We're almost home." It's the smoke, he knows, but his soft tone sounds ten years younger.

Sighing, Slade asks, "When did you get so optimistic?"

"When I had to," Oliver replies, and doesn't wait for the others, just takes off at a jog into the woods, into the darkness, into the fires he started and couldn't put out, because his family is still out there, and he can't leave them to burn.

He feels like he's burning, igniting from the inside, and pushes himself until he cannot see at all, until his every sense is numb. Then he wanders the hostile terrain he has known for a decade without direction but with hope, refusing to relent to the element which forged him into a weapon: _fire_.

From the ash, he finds them together.

He has no voice, but he stumbles forward, desperate and anxious and heartbreakingly hopeful, collapsing to his _knees_ and reaching for John's shoulder. He gives it a shake.

Back to a tree, eyes closed, John doesn't respond. Felicity, curled at his side, head on his chest, doesn't respond, either.

"J—John," he rasps. " _John_." Shaking hard, he feels an animal noise of pain building in his chest because John's so cold, Felicity's so cold, and mindlessly he strips off his own jacket and wraps it around them, his shirt clinging to his chest. "Pl—please. _Please_. I – I can't – I can't do this without you."

He hauls on John's shoulder and feels a sob tear past his throat when John doesn't even twitch. John, soldier-John who wakes at falling bird feathers, doesn't open his eyes. His face is very still. His hands are very cold.

Desperately, Oliver shakes Felicity's shoulder, _please please please please_ , an inarticulate anguish pouring out of him as neither of them _move_.

Gasping in pain, he drags Felicity away and into his arms, hugging her, in too much pain to even weep because he can't lose them, he can't, he –

John twitches. He imagines it, imagines the way John's eyelids flutter, imagines the way he at Oliver. Then he reaches up a heavy and decidedly real hand and rests it on Oliver's shoulder, and the world falls back into joyful pieces. He feels it, then, Felicity's chest rising and falling shallowly against him, eyes closed in relief, burning even behind the lids but Felicity-Felicity-Felicity- _Felicity_.

Oliver almost passes out with relief, but it's so tremendously counterproductive to his goal that he forces himself to shove down the relief. He lets go of Felicity and hauls himself with blackout intent to his feet, do-or-die resolve sinking its teeth into his shoulder. Holding out a hand, he helps John, rock-steady John, stand. When John is on his feet, Oliver crouches, lifting Felicity bridal-style and hugging her close to his chest. It's not the most practical hold, but it frees up his shoulder for John to place a hand on, and as they walk he leans into Oliver, and Oliver finds his living weight is all the strength he needs to carry on.

They make a sight, he is sure, as they finally clear the woods and reach the shore.

Mind fuzzy, he doesn't know and can't bring himself to care about magnitude – everyone is breathing, everyone is _alive_ , and however desperately, he has to cling to that singular truth. Oliver sets Felicity down carefully and John sinks to the space beside her, silent and watchful. Curtis has the ship's radio on his lap, arguing in a slightly slower but still coherent tone with Dinah about the potential for getting out a signal.

"Sounds like your area, kid," Slade points out, standing with his feet in the water, soaking in the cold, the reprieve.

Oliver's lips twitch, but he doesn't say anything as he steps forward and takes the offered radio. It's largely untampered with – clearly Chase wanted to leave himself the option to escape, in case it came to that.

In thirty minutes, they have a successfully received mayday signal and a rescue boat on the way.

Oliver sits hard, intending to say something to rally the team – to check in with Rene, to assess John, to help anyone, everyone, to ease the collective pain of injuries demanding acknowledgment in the After none of them knew was coming – but darkness crowds in and he surrenders to it first.

. o .

It'll be a long month before the team is back together.

But when Oliver steps into the Arrow cave, he doesn't say a word before Felicity hugs him, long and tight. John clasps a hand on his shoulder. The rest of the team stands nearby, at attention, waiting.

When he finds his voice, Oliver says slowly, "Thank you."

"You saved our lives," Curtis points out. "Thank _you_."

Pressing his forehead to Felicity's shoulder, aching with relief that she's okay, she's _okay_ , he knows she hears it the way he intends it. _Thank you for staying with me._

He'll shake hands with Rene and Quentin, check in with Samantha and William that afternoon, and proceed with his mayoral life in a fashion almost resembling normal that night.

But holding up shop in his home with Felicity in his arms and John at his side, he feels downright invincible, a ferocious kind of optimism sweeping over him.

 _We're going to survive_ , he tells them, meeting their eyes.

 _We're meant to survive._


End file.
